You need a good voice to be heard in the media

July 6 2003By John Elder

Like most guests on The Panel, Samuel Johnson barely got a word in over the jocular interruptions of Rob Sitch and company when he recently appeared on the show. The one moment of pause came when he was asked the following question: "Are you sick of the sound of your own voice?"

The query related less to Johnson's role as narrator on The Secret Life of Us than to his not-so-secret life of spruiking, as a voiceover man in commercials.

Since his late teens, Johnson has been a voice for the Army Reserve, the Department of Human Services, Adidas, Portmans, Telstra, Citibank, Mattel, Ford, Southeast Water, Youth Week, Silvertop Taxis, the TAC - and lemonade, milk and meat pies. To name a few.

"Sammy's voice appeals to young people. Fox (radio) has used him as the rhythm of the station and of the city. He has the voice that communicates with younger people," says Phil Webster, a 40-year veteran of radio commercial production who has worked with Johnson since the man was a boy.

As Webster points out, to some extent Johnson took over from Ben Mendelsohn as the cool young voice of merchandising - after Mendelsohn decided he no longer wanted to be a salesman and concentrated on his acting instead. (Mendelsohn's higher-profile gigs included ads for Qantas and Foster's during the Olympics, when he lent his voice to a talking koala.)");document.write("

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Now Samuel Johnson is pulling the plug. As he told The Panel - and, some time ago, he told Phil Webster - he's letting his various advertising contracts run out.

Webster, a producer and engineer who runs Risk Sound recording studios in Port Melbourne, where he makes ads for "everything from corporations to condoms" - says many actors have qualms about doing voice work for commercials, and will tend to take jobs on the sly. But Johnson isn't one of them.

"He isn't precious . . . rather, I think it's now starting to get in the way of his acting and the time he has available. He doesn't really have qualms about it. As a twentysomething, he has a good start to life as far as the bank balance goes."

Did Johnson become over-exposed? "Well, take someone like Sigrid Thornton. She's done a little bit of it [voiceover work]. But she's so talented with her voice, most listeners wouldn't recognise her. But it got to the stage with Sammy, there were so many commercials with the same voice, and then he does The Secret Life of Us ... and suddenly people could put a face and name to the voice and it came out of the cupboard, so to speak."

So if Sammy's cool, but out of the game, who's the next voiceover star? On the one hand, Webster can name a few up-and-comers.

"Like Angus Samson, an incredibly talented young man. Where Sammy is . . . Sammy, Angus uses a range of voices. And he's having a lot of fun seeing what he can do with them."

Angus who? Angus Samson: he does the breakfast show on 3RRR, and plays the cheery wog brother in Greeks on the Roof.

But he is possibly most loved for his naughty drongo character in Maggi Snack Stop commercials. The one where he says: "Your gran . . . she's another hairy one who likes it." (Samson has also starred in ads for Cadbury, Razamatazz stockings, the Yellow Pages and Scienceworks.)

On the other hand, Phil Webster says the voiceover game is no longer confined to the professional entertainer - and the next star could well be your garbage man or bus driver.

"Actually, there is a fellow called Peter Davis who was a coach driver . . . and we've used him for quite a few commercials - for VicHealth, Tattersall's, the White Pages. He's good at playing dads. He's a real everyday bloke with a lovely personality.

"Thirty years ago, it was very much a closed shop. There were about a dozen people in Melbourne who got all the work, including a few actors.

"These days, there are more actors trying to get voice work- and we're using more 'real' people.

"Like Peter Davis - he was doing a bit of amateur theatre when someone suggested he come and see us. That was about five years ago.

"We just put him in front of a microphone and put his voice on file (in a digital library)."

Webster has about 900 voices on file - "men, women and children . . . and a good number of them being actors looking for work".